photo: W Dallian
Today we sat down with some of the cast of CBC's hit series Heartland. Jessica Amlee (Mallory Wells), Heartland's newest cast member, Alisha Newton (Georgie Crawley), and Graham Wardle (Tyler Borden) to talk about their exciting new season, and some of the fun they had on set.
tV: (to Alisha) You're the newest cast member to join Heartland, yes?
AN: Yes.
tV: How are you liking it? Is this your first show?
AN: I've done a pilot and a couple of short films and Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters but this is my first TV series.
tV: They made you ride a horse.
AN: Yes.
tV: Had you ever ridden a horse before?
AN: My grandma has a horse. I rode her horse a little bit: she walked the horse for me and I just sat on it. Right before Heartland I started taking some lessons and I absolutely loved it. When I came to Heartland it was perfect because I could ride: not well but I could ride.
GW: She's really good now.
AN: Really?
GW: Yah. We were on set the other day and she was just running up and down getting ready for the scene and I was thinking, “man, that chick is good at riding” (laughs).
JA: Yah, she's really good at progression.
GW: Yes. She learned very quickly.
tV: Did you two have any riding experience before the show?
JA: I did. I'd been riding a lot of my life. My best friend owned a horse so I did a lot of bareback. That's not really as structured as English riding. You need to have really good posture and really good stance and I had to learn that through Heartland.
GW: Graham had a big fat zero but that was okay because my character had no experience on horses so I was about a week or two ahead of my character in terms of learning. Amber (Marshall) has a picture of me to remind me to stay humble, and it's me and my first horse riding lesson and I'm wearing shorts. I wore sneakers because I didn't know I had to wear boots. They gave me boots, so I have these leather cowboy boots and these shorts that are now riding up my legs, and I'm on this horse with this stupid grin on my face (laughs).
JA: (laughs) “I'm from Vancouver...”
GW: “...and I've never ridden a horse before.”
tV: So you've just wrapped up season six. Do you know if you're coming back for another season?
JA: We don't know yet.
GW: We hope so, if the fans keep watching, and keep writing on the blog saying they love the show. Last year they didn't tell us whether we'd be returning, until a month before we went back. We have a good cliffhanger this year and we feel really good about the stories. We're hoping the fans will enjoy them as well and we'll be back for another season.
JA: We always prepare for the next season. The writers are already making story arcs and planning everything out just in case.
tV: Are you able to tell us about some of the highlights of the new season?
GW: We always have cliffhangers in the middle and the end so there's this nice episode coming up this Sunday with a big event. We can't say what it is, but when we were shooting this scene there was supposed to be a nice sunset on the water and it was supposed to be really beautiful but it clouded over and started to rain hard, and there was thunder and lightning. They put up these little things over top of us to keep the rain off our heads they tried to frame out the lightning and change the scene with colour correction. When you see the scene you'll think it looks great, but on the day it was a storm. Without giving anything away, it's a big moment. It's a very big step for my character.
There's a storyline that Mallory has coming up in a couple episodes we can be vague about (laughs).
JA: Yes, we can be very vague about (laughs). Something really crazy happens that effects everybody.
GW: And it's all her fault (laughs).
JA: Yah, it's all my fault. My character goes through a little bit of craziness. She goes through some turmoil. It's hard to explain. Some really tragic, shocking things are coming up on Heartland, especially this year. We just finished filming our last episode of season six and that is one of the most shocking episodes.
GW: We had a barn burn down in season one or two...
JA: Season two I think.
GW: And that was one of my favourite episodes because it was epic. There's some stuff we did this year that we'd never done before and it's really intense and it's really dramatic, so I think the fans will enjoy what's coming up in these next few weeks of the show.
JA: We hope that there's a season seven because season six will leave a lot of people very curious to know what happens next.
tV: For this past season, what were some of the biggest challenges you had individually?
GW: I had this giant word I had to say. My character is a veterinarian now so there's this word I had to say Phosphofructokinase... I had to memorize it and say it like I knew it.
tV: Do you know what it means?
GW: No idea (laughs). How about you Jess?
JA: There's been some horseback riding which is fun and challenging, to look like you know what you're doing. Alisha has also been doing lots of horseback riding.
AN: Yes, and in one episode my character Georgie falls off a horse. I didn't fall off the horse it was my stunt double. But I had to do ADR (additional dialogue recording) for that scene and I found that very hard because it's someone falling off a horse and they want you to scream or something but you don't really know what to do because, would you really scream or would you go, woah!
GW: Exactly. A lot of times in ADR they want you to make a sound that doesn't really sound like what you would do but it makes sense for the people who are editing it. It's really hard to make it seem real if you feel you wouldn't actually do that. ADR is an ongoing challenge.
AN: Yah. It's a battle.
JA: With ADR we get to see the footage before it's on television so it's nice to see what we're doing before it airs.
GW: Sometimes we'll tweak things if we think our performances aren't good enough.
JA: Yah, like change the tone of your voice to something much more sensitive (laughs).
tV: We're getting signaled to wrap things up so perhaps you could quickly tell us what supporting the Food Bank means to you.
GW: I think it's great to give back and I think that when you are blessed to be able to share with others, I think that that's what life is about: sharing what you have and giving. I think food and a food bank is one aspect of that and it's a great thing to be able to share things with people who aren't as fortunate and who need those necessities.
JA: Yah, and it should be such a human right that everybody should be able to eat.
GW: Especially in cities. You don't have the trees where you can go pick an apple.
JA: Food is a necessity and it's great that the CBC this and that it's Canadian. It's something that they can be proud of.
AN: I agree.
Click on Heartland to check out the latest news, and don't forget to write on the blog and let them know what you think.
AN: Yes.
tV: How are you liking it? Is this your first show?
AN: I've done a pilot and a couple of short films and Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters but this is my first TV series.
tV: They made you ride a horse.
AN: Yes.
tV: Had you ever ridden a horse before?
AN: My grandma has a horse. I rode her horse a little bit: she walked the horse for me and I just sat on it. Right before Heartland I started taking some lessons and I absolutely loved it. When I came to Heartland it was perfect because I could ride: not well but I could ride.
GW: She's really good now.
AN: Really?
GW: Yah. We were on set the other day and she was just running up and down getting ready for the scene and I was thinking, “man, that chick is good at riding” (laughs).
JA: Yah, she's really good at progression.
GW: Yes. She learned very quickly.
tV: Did you two have any riding experience before the show?
JA: I did. I'd been riding a lot of my life. My best friend owned a horse so I did a lot of bareback. That's not really as structured as English riding. You need to have really good posture and really good stance and I had to learn that through Heartland.
GW: Graham had a big fat zero but that was okay because my character had no experience on horses so I was about a week or two ahead of my character in terms of learning. Amber (Marshall) has a picture of me to remind me to stay humble, and it's me and my first horse riding lesson and I'm wearing shorts. I wore sneakers because I didn't know I had to wear boots. They gave me boots, so I have these leather cowboy boots and these shorts that are now riding up my legs, and I'm on this horse with this stupid grin on my face (laughs).
JA: (laughs) “I'm from Vancouver...”
GW: “...and I've never ridden a horse before.”
tV: So you've just wrapped up season six. Do you know if you're coming back for another season?
JA: We don't know yet.
GW: We hope so, if the fans keep watching, and keep writing on the blog saying they love the show. Last year they didn't tell us whether we'd be returning, until a month before we went back. We have a good cliffhanger this year and we feel really good about the stories. We're hoping the fans will enjoy them as well and we'll be back for another season.
JA: We always prepare for the next season. The writers are already making story arcs and planning everything out just in case.
tV: Are you able to tell us about some of the highlights of the new season?
GW: We always have cliffhangers in the middle and the end so there's this nice episode coming up this Sunday with a big event. We can't say what it is, but when we were shooting this scene there was supposed to be a nice sunset on the water and it was supposed to be really beautiful but it clouded over and started to rain hard, and there was thunder and lightning. They put up these little things over top of us to keep the rain off our heads they tried to frame out the lightning and change the scene with colour correction. When you see the scene you'll think it looks great, but on the day it was a storm. Without giving anything away, it's a big moment. It's a very big step for my character.
There's a storyline that Mallory has coming up in a couple episodes we can be vague about (laughs).
JA: Yes, we can be very vague about (laughs). Something really crazy happens that effects everybody.
GW: And it's all her fault (laughs).
JA: Yah, it's all my fault. My character goes through a little bit of craziness. She goes through some turmoil. It's hard to explain. Some really tragic, shocking things are coming up on Heartland, especially this year. We just finished filming our last episode of season six and that is one of the most shocking episodes.
GW: We had a barn burn down in season one or two...
JA: Season two I think.
GW: And that was one of my favourite episodes because it was epic. There's some stuff we did this year that we'd never done before and it's really intense and it's really dramatic, so I think the fans will enjoy what's coming up in these next few weeks of the show.
JA: We hope that there's a season seven because season six will leave a lot of people very curious to know what happens next.
tV: For this past season, what were some of the biggest challenges you had individually?
GW: I had this giant word I had to say. My character is a veterinarian now so there's this word I had to say Phosphofructokinase... I had to memorize it and say it like I knew it.
tV: Do you know what it means?
GW: No idea (laughs). How about you Jess?
JA: There's been some horseback riding which is fun and challenging, to look like you know what you're doing. Alisha has also been doing lots of horseback riding.
AN: Yes, and in one episode my character Georgie falls off a horse. I didn't fall off the horse it was my stunt double. But I had to do ADR (additional dialogue recording) for that scene and I found that very hard because it's someone falling off a horse and they want you to scream or something but you don't really know what to do because, would you really scream or would you go, woah!
GW: Exactly. A lot of times in ADR they want you to make a sound that doesn't really sound like what you would do but it makes sense for the people who are editing it. It's really hard to make it seem real if you feel you wouldn't actually do that. ADR is an ongoing challenge.
AN: Yah. It's a battle.
JA: With ADR we get to see the footage before it's on television so it's nice to see what we're doing before it airs.
GW: Sometimes we'll tweak things if we think our performances aren't good enough.
JA: Yah, like change the tone of your voice to something much more sensitive (laughs).
tV: We're getting signaled to wrap things up so perhaps you could quickly tell us what supporting the Food Bank means to you.
GW: I think it's great to give back and I think that when you are blessed to be able to share with others, I think that that's what life is about: sharing what you have and giving. I think food and a food bank is one aspect of that and it's a great thing to be able to share things with people who aren't as fortunate and who need those necessities.
JA: Yah, and it should be such a human right that everybody should be able to eat.
GW: Especially in cities. You don't have the trees where you can go pick an apple.
JA: Food is a necessity and it's great that the CBC this and that it's Canadian. It's something that they can be proud of.
AN: I agree.
Click on Heartland to check out the latest news, and don't forget to write on the blog and let them know what you think.
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